title: Root cause analysis and solution to the degradation of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) couplers in high power fiber amplifier system.
abstract: In the evaluation a fused biconical taper 1480/1580 nm WDM's ability to handle high power cascaded Raman laser throughput (>100 W) a significant degradation in performance was observed. A systematic root cause investigation was conducted and it is experimentally confirmed that the WDM degradation was caused by an interaction between the high power 1480 nm line, an out-of-band Stokes line, and the -OH content of the glass optical fiber. Slanted fiber Bragg grating (SFBG) was introduced to filter out the 1390 nm out-of-band Stokes line in an attempt to avoid this interaction. Ultimately a series of tests were conducted and it was confirmed that the addition of a 1390 nm SFBG in between a high power Raman laser and the high power WDM has successfully prevented the degradation which therefore allowed the continued high power operation of the WDM. NAVAIR Public Release SPR 2013-469 Distribution Statement A-"Approved for Public release; distribution is unlimited".
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Kyungbum
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Xinhua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mielke
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jennings
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rider
authors.forename: Norman
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.forename: Toby
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Woodbridge
authors.forename: Rene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dionne
authors.forename: Francois
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Trepanier